


Swaying Blades

by psychoduck



Category: Sharp Objects (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 04:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17912072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychoduck/pseuds/psychoduck
Summary: It gave her chills just considering the notion that Amma could hide such things from her, like she used to do with Adora, like she used to be back then, in that damn past they silently swore to never dwell on or talk about again.





	Swaying Blades

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themelodymaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themelodymaker/gifts).



> I don't claim to own anything.
> 
> Steph asked for some domestic!Camille/Amma. Be careful what you wish for, bub, as it turns out I can't deliver.

Sparkle my scenery

With turquoise waterfall

With beauty underneath

Tuck me in beneath the blue

Beneath the pain, beneath the rain

Goodnight kiss for a child in time

Swaying blade my lullaby

Be still, my daughter, you're home

Oh, when did you become so cold?

The blade will keep on descending

All you need is to feel my love

Search for beauty, find your shore

Try to save them all, bleed no more.¹

* * *

 _Pumping_. _Constant_. _Dripping_. _Silent_. 

Camille was very well aware indeed of how much a superficial cut could bleed and by now she’d think that she would be used to the sight of it – but maybe all that self-proclaimed bravery only applied to her own flesh, she thought as soon as she laid eyes on a bloodied, scruffy-looking Amma, who was sheepishly resigned in one of the school principal’s office plastic chairs, holding a now burgundy handkerchief to her forehead.   

“Jesus, Amma…”      

“It wasn’t my fault”, Amma immediately blurted out with a heavy sounding slurred voice.

“What happened?”

Camille quickly moved through the small room towards Amma, attempting to see the damage done to her younger sister’s face. _FIX_ quietly murmuring in her left wrist, begging her for some sort of release. Any release, but _not now, not yet_. She removed the soggy handkerchief only to gasp at the sight, there was a significant bruising already claiming its place in Amma’s left cheek along with faded dry red lines in her chin and a cut near her scalp flowing like an angry crimson faucet.

Amma hissed as Camille sat down next to her and softly prodded her cheek. That whole mothering act bothered them both, for it served somehow as a reminder of her. Adora used to do that frequently, _old habits die hard_ , Amma thought, but whereas her Mama’s touch would be inquiring, unwelcome and unfeeling, Camille’s would, sting of course, yet feel like a caress, feel a lot like love - the sincere kind.

 _So fitting_ , Amma smiled, _she hurts but she’s still soft like a little lamb to me_.    

“I don't know why you're happy. That cut will need stitches”, Camille smoothed some of her sister’s tangled blood-matted hair back, trying to give her any kind of small comfort she could offer at the time being while Amma simply laid her head in Camille’s shoulder, lightly sniffing her neck, as if she needed that to ground herself to normality again.

Camille always feared that the two of them would never leave these violent acts behind them for good; it was always there somehow, lurking, waiting, and waving at them like some old acquaintance across the street or wherever else they went, _always this violence between us_. Camille feared that so very much that it kept her wide awake and alert some nights, that irrational and inexplicable feeling of dread, the feeling that eventually one of them would just explode in a tidal wave of fury and rage like they both did it many times in the past.

A door opened to reveal a tired looking, well dressed middle-aged man.

“Miss Preaker? A few words if you don’t mind?”

* * *

Camille brought along with her a trusty old pillow, a small tray of chocolate chip cookies, vanilla ice cream and two glasses of warm milk to the bedroom. Sleeping over there that night wasn’t even a question, she thought, _I’m needed_. Amma was still a bit off because of the pain meds, but considering everything that had happened; she was going to be fine, Camille just knew that, for Amma sometimes seemed too much like a hard pill to swallow, it would demand quite the effort to actually wear the girl down.  

That morning, Camille had received a worrying call to notify her that Amma had troubled herself in an altercation of sorts with some girls at school. She was supposed to head off into a new work assignment, but instead, and with Frank’s green light to do so, she ended up driving like a fast approaching thunderstorm to the school, terrified that Amma had done something really bad, terrified that something horrible had happened to her, terrified of what she was raising in her own home, terrified that she was about to lose the only thing she had left.

To her surprise, as much as a physical fight wasn’t something to be taken lightly, the principal assured Camille that it wasn’t Amma’s fault at all. She had been the target of some bad practical jokes for a while now, he said; it had all started when one of her classmates found out who she was – who her mama was, _babykiller_ , and decided to spread it all over the school. _Kids are a whole other level of mean, you see_ and Amma, the queen bee that once mercilessly bullied others into her submission, now found herself being heavily bullied by her peers.

 _She never told me that_ , Camille thought while hearing the events being narrated to her as gently as a hammer going through her skull. _Not even once had she thought about telling me? Not even once had I noticed something was off? Who knows what else she could be hiding as well_. It gave her chills just considering the notion that Amma could hide such things from her, like she used to do with Adora, like she used to be back then, in that damn past they silently swore to never dwell on or talk about again.

But now they would have to, as much as it pained them both.

Camille carefully approached the troubled girl.     

“Hey, I brought some of the fancy store good stuff for us to munch on. Do you want me to turn on some music?” Camille said as she entered the room.

“No, I just want to stay here. Like this, with you, m’okay?”, Amma’s small, broken voice still slurring at the edges quite a bit because of some internal mouth lacerations, making her sound as if she was a tad drunk. Like when they skated all around Wind Gap as if they were dark entities in search of a home to haunt, like when they held each other for so long while Amma spoke of a lost sister she so desperately wanted to find and to keep all to herself.  

“Are you in pain?” Amma denied with a nod of her head. “Good then. Scoot over.”

Camille moved to lie in bed while handing Amma the pint of ice cream.

“I want you to tell me what happened, but before that; you and I need to talk, I need you to keep this in mind, okay? I want you to tell me everything, always, no matter what it is. Amma, we promised each other, remember? No lies. We can only help each other if we do that, we promised that we would take care of each other, didn’t we?”

“And here I was thinking that this would be some simple sister bonding over cookies time, you tricked me with food, you little -”

“Hey! It is. I just want to hear it from you, as it should be.”

Amma sulked at her sister’s words, she knew that Camille meant every word, she knew it was the right thing to do even if it meant prodding all of her narcissistic wounds at once.

“They don’t like me over there, at school I mean. It shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t bother me at all, it didn't before but… weirdly now it does. After they found out about Mama, they keep… I don’t know. They look at me different now, like I’m trash, like I’m poison. It makes me feel trapped and invisible and I hate it.”

 _Now that's a first for her_ , Camille thought as she felt those words slicing through her like a knife slicing up a cake. They both remained quiet for a few minutes, until Camille, ever the brave one, holding a now sluggish Amma in her arms, decided to venture one more question out.

“And what did they do to you today?”

Amma took her time before answering, she got up, freeing herself from her sister’s embrace, turned to face her and fondly caressed her hair. It amazed her sometimes how much Camille could calm her ever screaming demons and she did it so genuinely, so heartfelt, never asking for anything back, except for sincere affection. It made Amma want to tell her everything, every little unsaid thing and she longed for the day Camille would take one look at her and just know. _But now it wasn’t the right time_.

“There is this girl that has been nagging at me for a while; she is just some jealous dumb bitch, you know? She and all her bimbo friends are. Everyone at school just follow her lead like a flock of ducks”, she breathed out heavily and went on, “they wanted to be extra funny today, so they taped some shit on my locker, that’s it. I lost it. I went to confront her but the fucking coward hid behind her friends so I called her a fucking cunt and left. I’m not stupid, Mille, I won’t pick up a fight I know I’m gonna lose. You see, I was going to set up a good nice trap for her, teach her a little lesson in manners but that bitch got me first, she and her cronies got me good. They found me alone near the gym stalls. I only remember my head being smashed into a wall corner. But you’ll see, I’ll get her soon, I’ll get her real good one of these days, I will make her swallow her own fucking teeth if I have to.”

There it was, that dreadful, dangerous, bubbling at the surface violence nurtured to them ever since they were babies feeding at Mama’s bosom. It was right there, pooling on the tip of Amma’s tongue, vividly sparkling something fierce in her lupine eyes.

“Please, don’t do that. I’ll talk to the principal and we’ll figure something out. But please, don’t go on teaching lessons that aren’t yours to preach it in the first place, Amma, will you promise me?”

She didn't say a word, only stared dead on at Camille's face, as if she was asking her to come up with a way to put back together what had been broken inside her some years ago.

Camille was aware of what they had taped in her locker door, she had seen it herself. A printed picture of Amma and Camille taken from one of her social media accounts mashed up badly with Adora’s infamous prison mug shot and in bold red letters “PIGGIE PIGGIE PIGGIE”. _I guess people really were doing their research on us, on our killer family business_.

But that was just the way things were sometimes. Teenagers being downright evil in every opportunity they had, only because they could. Maybe it was that damn need they all had to vent out and smash things for no reason at all, there is loads of stupidity and want and rage beneath all that young, bare, supple skin. Amma was like that, so was Camille once. _We all are riddled with holes that are dying with the need of being filled and what you can’t make up with sex, you make up with violence; you make up with cruelty_. It was never kindness, not even once. Not for Camille or Amma at least, they only knew fire as teenagers and it still feverishly burned within their bodies.

Its ghostly flames trying to reach across to them with her red claws as long as tentacles pulling them back to _her_. Camille feared the day _she_ would achieved it, because she was certain that one day _she_ would. _She burned us down, maybe we should just let her finish, let her end it all like she wanted to_.

 _RIPE_ screamed out for its release.

Suddenly Camille couldn’t stand it not even for a second longer and jumped out of bed.     

“Amma, are you in pain? I mean it.”

“No, but I’m not really feeling the tip of my nose. Why?” Amma said it as she nibbled on a left over cookie crumb.

“I want to go for a ride. Grab your skates, let’s get out of here.”

* * *

Camille drove them around for a while until she found an empty dirt road right outside of town; it would do the trick just fine. It was dark, eerie and moody. One could almost smell the dry stale air all over the open space with distant glimpses of a far away promised rain. Nothing and no one there, but the harsh sound of the wind and the buzzing of bugs going on for miles and miles ahead of them. Nothing there, but the two girls leaving all that shit behind them, where it belonged, if only for a few precious hours.  

“This is what we need Amma, a small respite, just you and me going somewhere, anywhere, nowhere really.”

Amma wickedly smiled to Camille as she took their skates out of the car with a loud thump on the door, still high on her pain meds.

“This is gonna be fun.”

With both their phones serving as flashlights, while Amma’s also provided the much needed background music, they swayed around in their skates, back and forth, left to right, right to left, alternating between fast and slow, dancing around each other, among dirt pebbles and old asphalt, raising an awful lot of dust, pulling pranks, trying to bring the other down, fighting to get up, pulling each other forward, lagging the other from behind, screaming random music lyrics, facing one another and smiling as wide as they could, feeling as if their lungs would burst out in every frenetic move they made. Many times they’d find themselves facing the dirt ground, opening new shiny bleeding wounds in their knees and elbows while closing the older, painful ones in their minds. How wonderful that felt on their skins, on their souls.

Camille opened her arms wide open, like she did it so many times before, as she listened to some low distant voice that sang oh, so beautifully, about often feeling guilty, being caught up in forests, hanging with trees and odd realizations about not mattering anymore, questioning one’s reality. How fitting for the both of them was that song, because it always seemed as if they were tumbling right on the verge of questioning their entire existences just like that, only to never receive a proper answer, only to find themselves staring at an infinite mirror, only to have one another to fall back into.

“Hey, Mille? You are stuck with me”, Amma said as she reached out her arm to touch hands with Camille, just a ‘barely there, blink and you’ll miss it’ touch, a mere phantom of the gargantuan tenderness they felt for each other.

Camille wasn’t having that at all, no, she needed to feel wholesome again, fulfilled and complete even if only for a few seconds. She needed to believe there wasn’t a single hole left inside her mind; she needed to believe that she belonged.

_So I guess I’ll be sticking with you._

Still too much fast for what she intended, Camille - if not for Amma holding her by the waist, almost brought them both down to the floor again as she lunged for her sister, wanting nothing more but to tuck her tight in her arms, to desperately bury her deep in her bones, etch her forever not only in her skin but also in her heart, ever the two of them, dangerously swaying like seesaw blades beneath the shadow of the moon, around the edges of the trees, childishly giggling and high as kites.

* * *

One - perhaps way too bright and chirpy morning, just a few days after their country side night ride, Amma reentered through the school doors like the goddess of chaos herself, with a devious smug smile in her face, still sporting hints of a freshly healed bruise, knowing exactly what she had to do, step by step. Time to reinstall order: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

But first, _a small respite indeed_ , Amma thought as she crossed the busy hallways, _this is just the calm before the torment I’ll unleash upon ‘em, just the silence before their screams. I’m sorry, Mille, but one day you’ll get that I’m still the one in charge of punishment here and there is no rest for the wicked._

Oh, what one hell of a call she will receive at work today.

At last it was time to mourn, time to give, time to fall, it was time to preach.

**Author's Note:**

> The trilogy is complete. Again, I'm so very sorry Gillian.
> 
> And y'all feel free to send love, hate and memes.
> 
> ¹The Poet and The Pendulum.


End file.
